"Struggling manga author Satoru Fujinuma has a supernatural ability of being forced to prevent deaths and catastrophes by being sent back in time before the incident occurred, repeating time until it is prevented. One day, he gets involved in an incident that has him framed as a murderer. Desperate to save the victim, he sends himself back in time only to find himself as a grade-schooler one month before fellow classmate Kayo Hinazuki went missing. Satoru now embarks on a new quest: to save Kayo and solve the mystery behind her disappearance." - MyAnimeList

This is the only Winter 2016 anime I am watching this season, but I am quite confident just from the two episodes I've seen so far that this is the single best anime of the season, bar none, and is an absolute must-see for anyone who enjoyed any of the following: Steins;Gate, Ano Hana, Kyou no 5-2, Aku no Hana, Death Parade.

The story premise from the first five minutes of Episode 01 -- "guy is pulled into the past every time someone nearby dies; guy has to find the problem and fix it" -- is hardly original. But what makes Boku dake ga Inai Machi so thrilling is, it doesn't just stop with Satoru's lifeguard duty. A particular murder sees Satoru sent back to the year 1988. Japan was very different in 1988, and so's Satoru: he's in the 5th grade, vs. the 29 years of age he had when last we saw him in 2006. So the story suddenly becomes one part Quantum Leap, one part Kyou no 5-2, one part Ano Hana as Satoru tries to save the life of a classmate, Hinazuki Kayo, who was found dead in the snow that same year. Will Satoru be able to change the future? Or will he only wind up making things worse and having to go back in time again to try a second attempt at making things right? Now the story suddenly becomes Steins;Gate and it's like OOOOOOOOH, MAN! All aboard the hype train.

The animation is very good. So is the direction. The soundtrack works well, creating atmosphere without distracting in most instances. The voice acting is very enjoyable. It's all good.

I'll save more episode-specific discussion for subsequent posts. For now, all I can say is: if you aren't watching Boku dake ga Inai Machi already, you really should be.

Watched the first two eps. Looks intriguing. The beginning did feel slightly rushed, but apparently that's because the first episode covered six chapters to get to the big hook. According to manga-readers the story cut/changed some things to make it fit, based on which I'll clarify in response to this post:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Talon87

Just watched the first episode of Boku dake ga Inai Machi. It was pretty good! However ...

Even before they revealed that Yuuki might have been innocent, I was thinking that he was framed and that the murderer might very well be a police officer. Then they have to go and show it () when the officers come to arrest Satoru. One of the cops, the one standing on our left, looks just like the murderer now in uniform. He looks young in 2007, but we've already been primed by Satoru's mother that Asians can sometimes look deceptively young for their age until they hit their mid-50s. So like ... yes, the cop looks young in 2007, but he could very well be in his late 40s there and have been a rookie cop in his 20s back in 1988.

I place the question mark because this is all pure conjecture. Zero spoilers, and I could be way wrong. It's just, it seems obvious to me given the episode's presented information that the real killer is probably hiding within law enforcement. And the studio seemed too eager to place a cop there who looked just like the murderer.

I dunno. We'll see. Even if I'm right, it's going to be interesting to see how Satoru saves his mother and what the consequences might be for the other children.

I definitely want to see more. The fact that it's only a 12'er is also promising: hopefully we get closure by the end! (Please don't let this be another Aku no Hana! >_<)

The animé altered the aftermath of the murder, whereas in the manga Satoru did not encounter the killer coming out of the apartment, and the cops did not arrive so quickly on the scene (a feat even non-readers questioned). He also apparently forced a normal Revival to occur by begging it to happen in an attempt to save his mother, which failed the first time.

I've seen a lot of speculation going around already as to who the culprit is. Suspects include:

may have the Revival ability too, based on how they don't really act like grade-schoolers. I got the impression the kids' dialogue didn't really suit their age either, but I'm not sure whether that's just because they're more mature or due to inaccurate writing.

I will however throw out the Kagerou Days theory (which someone else actually thought of as well) that

is not actually the killer. One odd piece of evidence someone pointed out is that while the mom was stabbed in the back, when Satoru found her the knife was sticking out of her chest. Either this is deliberate on the part of the animators or just a very lazy mistake.

As an aside, I did like how they characterized Yuuki's speech patterns and portrayed his nervous eye movements. You definitely get the sense there's something "off" about him even before they reveal he might've been a killer, and it makes sense how people would think he's creepy for hanging around a younger kid, given his personality.

It was also fun trying to play "spot the oddity" with the Revivals. When they were in the parking lot I definitely had a bad feeling about the guy in the background holding a little girl's hand. Kinda wish they had shown more regular Revivals as an exercise in trying to trick the viewer. (Apparently in the manga there were more.)

Anyway, looking forward to continuing and hopefully discussing this. It's been a while since we've had a good mystery on our hands, and this looks like it's potentially shaping up to be a tearjerker as well.

Yay, our first reply! You got me to turn on the computer at this late hour and write up my "lots of little thoughts" I've hinted at in several posts thus far. I'll go ahead and do that first, and then circle around to reply to some of the things you noted which I had never heard of nor considered before.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

There are a lot of little things I want to comment on. The post will probably get pretty long, but many of the individual points will be pretty shallow, only a couple of sentences long. Forgive me! ^_^; (I guess for my own reading aid, and yours too if it helps, I'll go ahead and mark off separate ideas with a bold blue asterisk *.)

For the most part, I think I'll have spoilers hidden inside of spoiler tags, but I guess r~e~a~d~e~r----b~e~w~a~r~e~~~! that there might be spoilers for Eps 01 and 02 out in plain sight in this post. Don't read this post until you're through Episode 02, okay?

* I think the animation is really pretty good. Without getting bogged down by technical details, I'd say it's probably somewhere between 80/100 and 90/100 (going by current standards).

* I think the voice acting is really great. Kayo, 2006 Satoru, 1988 Satoru, Satoru's mother, and Kenya are all up there for me. I've probably mentioned this before but it bears repeating. Any newcomers we may have, I think we should pay close attention to them in the future!

* Episode 02 gave me some Ano Hana vibes in more than one way. One of the ways in particular was ...

I get the impression that this is a "Guy likes Girl but Girl likes Other Guy" / "Girl likes Guy but Guy likes Other Girl" kind of setup, typical of romance stories, that is been fixed at the hip to a "Super Peace Busters"-esque sort of group of friends who hang out at their secret base and play together. So like ...

Hiromi either likes Satoru or Kenya, but Kenya likes Kayo and 2006 Satoru (in 1988 Satoru's position) is going to find himself falling for Kayo too.

Another boy in the group likes Hiromi.

Kayo, in being brought into the group (in the revived version of 198, will fit this mold as well, falling for Satoru but being the object of Kenya's private affections.

I could be barking up the wrong tree, but we will see. Another aspect of the Ano Hana-ness was ...

Hiromi, just on looks alone, kinda reminds me of Tsuruko while Kenya, on looks alone, kinda reminds me of Yukiatsu. So you possibly have that happening again, where Tsuruko/Hiromi is crushing on Yukiatsu/Kenya but Y/K is too preoccupied with Menma/Kayo to care or notice.

Then you have Kayo, who doesn't really match with any of Tsuruko, Anaru, or Menma on looks or personality -- not 100% one of them, anyway -- but who clearly matches with Menma as far as story role is concerned: even if she wasn't a part of the 1988 group originally, a) she's clearly going to be incorporated into the group now (courtesy of Satoru) and b) we still have her original-timeline-1988 death in mind whenever we look at her, so we're inevitably thinking of her as "the girl in the group of friends who then died and left them all traumatized."

* I've previously mentioned the background music. But did you know that it was done by none other than Yuki Kajiura!? :o What a pleasant surprise. I especially love the song that plays during the ending scene of Episode 02.

* Let's talk about the OP. There are two things that really stand out to me with the OP, and frankly I'm not going to bother spoiler tagging either one of these because it's in the OP, man. ^^;

First, Kayo's limited appearance. I was looking for Kayo the entire time I first watched this, and was very surprised when she didn't turn up until near the very end. And that's the only time she turns up! And she has to share the screen with both Airi and Satoru's mother! What's up with that? It has to be a conscious decision by the director. A decision to show us scene after scene from 1988 but to omit Kayo from just about every single one of them. Is it an artistic message, "Kayo was never a big part of Satoru's original 1988 life"? Is it some other sort of artistic message? Is it not even a message, but something else entirely? No idea.

Second, the opposite with Kenya: his surprisingly over-appearance more prominent appearance than Kayo. I noticed it on the official anime site too: none of the other Super Peace Busters kids in Satoru's group of friends are shown with their pictures in this one relationship tree, but Kenya is. Sure there's no denying how he's the most important one of the gang so far, but ... Then there's the issue of his being the first person in the OP's reel of people with their eyes scribbled out. We get several characters in what look like strange hybrids between character profile pics and police station mug shots. Each of these characters has their eyes scribbled out, whether to conceal their identities or whether something else. And the very first person shown in this series of people ... it's not Satoru, it's not his mother, it's not Yuuki-san or Kayo ... it's Kenya. Hell, Kayo is not even shown at this point. Yet Kenya is. First! What's up with that? Speculation time:

Per what I mentioned here, I'm getting vibes that Kenya might have something to do with at least one of the killings we've seen so far. The permutations are:

he killed Kayo in 1988 but not Satoru's mother in 2006

he killed Satoru's mother in 2006 but not Kayo in 1988

he killed both

I feel like if the story is going to stick to the realistic, then it's going to have to be B. Because it seems pretty stupid for Kenya to be Kayo's killer when a) they're only 10, 11-year old kids; and b) he appears to be concerned about her too. (Yes, yes, yes: there's always the obsessed, jilted lover who says, "IF I CAN'T HAVE YOU, THEN NOBODY CAN!" and murders the person he's infatuated with. But c'mon, guys. A 10-year old? Really?)

But if the show doesn't plan to stick to the realistic -- and hey, after all, this is a show with time travel in it, so we're already in fantasy territory as it is! -- then I suppose C might be the most likely answer. Why? Well ...

I would expect that the reason Satoru's mother recognized the abductor in 2006, the one who ended up killing her for recognizing him, is because he's none other than Kenya all grown up. It took her a while to realize it was him but then she figured it out and yeah.

We still have the issue of why the police pegged the murder on Yuuki-san when there was no smoking gun. Well, you know how Satoru says that Kenya was always "the clever one" of the group? And how Kenya seems to be the group's resident detective? Well what if he actually is a detective -- or rather, is the son of the police chief? What then? If Kenya is really an evil little 10 year old, but he's also the chief of police's son, then when the evidence trail points back to Kenya, might not the police chief try and peg the murder on somebody else, anybody else, rather than have his darling little boy go to prison? If the show ends up revealing down the road that Kenya's parents have anything to do with the criminal investigation, then yeah, I'm going to have to call this point.

C also explains how this story arc might possibly end. What if in Story Arc 1 of the manga (however far up that goes), Satoru successfully saves Kayo, they grow up together in love, they end of marrying, starting a family together, life is peachy keen ... and then alcoholic bum Kenya decides to take revenge on Satoru "for stealin' MAH WOMUN!" and murders Satoru's mother in cold blood? In such a scenario, Satoru has still failed to rescue his mother; and so he still needs to go back in time again to 1988; and so we have our #steinsgate recipe for how this franchise could have kept going beyond a couple of manga volumes.

I dunno. This is all speculation. I could be way, way of base. Kenya could wind up everyone's favorite wingman by the end of this series. We'll really just have to wait and see.

* What about Asian Kung-Fu Generation? Yes, the band most famous to me and many other anime watchers for providing the second OP of Naruto and the fourth OP of FMA has returned, from what feels like a 10-year hiatus to me ('cause I don't follow their work), to provide the OP for this series. It's pretty crazy to hear their unforgettable vocals again. That stated, I'm not too crazy about the song itself. It's fine. I enjoy it okay. I'm not rushin' out to buy the CD or anything. Not itchin' to put the MP3 on my iPhone. But it's alright.

* ED is kind of forgettable, both visually and aurally. We'll see if those feelings change over time.

* There's a subtext here that Satoru wants to be a hero. We get it from the red mask he cherishes (Ep02) and the brief, brief flashback we have of the protagonist from that franchise when he's doing his first Revival we get to see (Ep01). I don't get the "supertext" from the young man / boy that he wants to be a hero, but the poster art (that I used for the OP pic up top) definitely doesn't give off any other impression. Wondering if that will factor in at all.

* I'm really curious to learn when Satoru's Revival powers started and why, if they started either before or right when Kayo died, they didn't trigger back in 1988 in response to her death.

* Playing off of that last point, I feel like there has to be a reason he's saving Kayo's life now, from 2006 back to 1988, rather than having saved it back then to begin with. I mean, a cosmic reason it's happening this way. I can work with the idea that he didn't have Revival powers until after it was too late for Kayo, but I'm saying that there has to be some reason that the Universe rendered him powerless as a 10-year old boy in 1988 yet then decided to let him try for it once he was 29 years old in 2006. Like ... cosmically, he's clearly been sent back to 1988 to fix things, so like ... why in this order? Why not when he was 10? Is it because who/what he is up against, an ordinary 10-year old boy couldn't handle? We'll have to wait and see.

* I have never in my life heard someone say "Shita kke!" when saying good-bye. Not sure whether it's dialectal, slang, or possibly both. Either way it's really cool and refreshing. I enjoy learning new things about Japanese, and I feel kinda powered up if this is authentic '80s slang from Hokkaido.

I'm assuming the "shita" part is a corruption of 明日 ashita, "tomorrow," as in また明日 mata ashita "See you tomorrow!". Not quite sure about the kke part though.

It's too easy if he's either Kayo's killer or Satoru's mother's killer. I'm not saying I want the killer to be little Kenya , but I don't really want it to be the most obvious male authority figure in the kids' lives outside of home either, y'know? ^^; That's too easy. Creepy pedo pursues career in education. Creepy pedo gets assigned class of lolis and shotas. Creepy pedo kills two kids before deciding to lay low while the police investigate.

But I dunno. The anime homepage clearly treats the guy like he's an important character to the story, and IIRC he's one of the mug shot people in the OP credits too. So like ... yeah, we obviously have to keep our eyes on him.

* The anime is really bringing the manga to life ... but we'll talk more about that another time. :')

The beginning did feel slightly rushed, but apparently that's because the first episode covered six chapters to get to the big hook. According to manga-readers the story cut/changed some things to make it fit, based on which I'll clarify in response to this post:

The animé altered the aftermath of the murder, whereas in the manga Satoru did not encounter the killer coming out of the apartment, and the cops did not arrive so quickly on the scene (a feat even non-readers questioned). He also apparently forced a normal Revival to occur by begging it to happen in an attempt to save his mother, which failed the first time.

I've seen a lot of speculation going around already as to who the culprit is. Suspects include:

may have the Revival ability too, based on how they don't really act like grade-schoolers. I got the impression the kids' dialogue didn't really suit their age either, but I'm not sure whether that's just because they're more mature or due to inaccurate writing.

I will however throw out the Kagerou Days theory (which someone else actually thought of as well) that

is not actually the killer. One odd piece of evidence someone pointed out is that while the mom was stabbed in the back, when Satoru found her the knife was sticking out of her chest. Either this is deliberate on the part of the animators or just a very lazy mistake.

As an aside, I did like how they characterized Yuuki's speech patterns and portrayed his nervous eye movements. You definitely get the sense there's something "off" about him even before they reveal he might've been a killer, and it makes sense how people would think he's creepy for hanging around a younger kid, given his personality.

It was also fun trying to play "spot the oddity" with the Revivals. When they were in the parking lot I definitely had a bad feeling about the guy in the background holding a little girl's hand. Kinda wish they had shown more regular Revivals as an exercise in trying to trick the viewer. (Apparently in the manga there were more.)

Anyway, looking forward to continuing and hopefully discussing this. It's been a while since we've had a good mystery on our hands, and this looks like it's potentially shaping up to be a tearjerker as well.

Differences from the manga: first, a quick little disclaimer: I've gotten the manga, quickly skimmed through all of Volume 1, caught up in Volume 2 to where we were in the show, and then skimmed the next chapter because I'm an idiot who hates spoilers yet then went looking for them. ^^; orz

So with that stated, I can confirm or clarify some of the stuff you're hearing about from manga readers. And yes, the anime has been edited to be a more streamlined work, which means it has made some cuts and changes to the story (from what I have seen so far).

Satoru being his own mother's killer: I don't really buy this one. At least not with the science fiction / fantasy we've been presented with in the series thus far. Nothing we've seen has given me the impression that we're dealing with traditional "time travel shenanigans" here and that there might be 2+ Satorus in 2006. I very much get the feeling that a single Satoru exists, he exists on a single timeline, and every once in a while he will rewiiiiiiiiiiiind that timeline -- usually by only a few minutes, and this time by 18 years -- and then make changes that take him in a new direction as he re-proceeds through time. I don't get the impression that he can gatejump back to the future (e.g. he can save Kayo in '88 and then inside of 24 hours in his personal frame of reference find himself back in 2006). I don't get the impression that there can be more than one of him at once in a given moment in time. That doesn't mean the author won't introduce those seeds later! Just that for right now, such speculation seems without any foundation whatsoever.

Another reason to reject this hypothesis that I only just thought of, several paragraphs later: if Satoru really were his own mother's killer, wouldn't you expect a very different reaction out of her? ^^; She recognized her killer, that much is clear. We can rule out that the killer killed her while masked. Surely she would recognize her own son. The way she reacts does not show the extreme fear, disgust, or confusion you would expect if she had just been killed by her own son.

(One final realization: There is one mask the killer could have worn that would have identified him to Satoru's mother ... but again, that mask would broadcast to her that she was murdered by her own son. And we just didn't see that sort of reaction out of her.)

Others having Revival powers: That's an interesting thought and something I hadn't even considered before now. Iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii ... don't think it's going to happen though. Or at least, I don't think either Kenya or Kayo have time travel powers. You're right to observe that both kids behave more like adults in children's bodies than authentic kids do. Buuuuuuuuuuut ... I think that's just the nature of the character writing. ^^; Think about all the kids you've seen in anime over the years. Especially when it hasn't been slice of life. Think about the high schoolers from Another. Didn't some of them act more like grown adults? Think about Tsumugu and Kaname from Nagi no Asu kara. Didn't they act more like men in their early 30s than boys only 14 years of age? Sometimes it really just depends on the writer, the story, and what they want/need those characters to be. I think Kenya is just meant to exude intelligence, calmness, wiseness, and so on. And that makes him seem super adult. His voice (provided by the voice actor) makes him sound too old, though otherwise impeccable. And his mannerisms on screen don't seem to match with the kids you remember from your own 5th grade life. There was never anyone that calm and collected when I was in 5th grade. lol I never had a scene like the one where Satoru grabs his backpack, lies about going to the nurse's office, and Kenya calls him out on it but then says whatever, it's fine, go ahead. Like, that scene really stood out to me! For the same reason you and/or your sources are theorizing that Kenya might not even be 10 years old! But like, whereas you guys are crediting his behavior to the plot, I'm crediting it more to just how the author wrote Kenya to be. I think Kenya's 10. I think Kayo's also 10. I don't think anyone here in the revived 1988 is older than they appear to be except for Satoru.

But I can't deny the possibility. We'll just have to wait and see!

Kayo is trying to save Satoru: From whom or what? From the child predator? From somebody or something else?

Knife changed positions, apartment departee not Satoru's mother's killer: Hmm, interesting. I'll have to revisit that scene and look for myself. I can say that in the manga, what happens is ...

He finds his mom dead inside the apartment, and then he looks downstairs outside ... and he sees someone watching him from the goddamn bushes like some sort of creepy stalker. ^^; So he loses it and gives mad chase after the bush-lurker. The bush-lurker manages to flee, and Satoru ends up attracting the unwanted attention of a patrol officer who happens to notice the blood on Satoru's hands.

So it's entirely possible that we're dealing with two different parties here: his mother's killer on the one hand, and then a second visitor on the other hand. The person Satoru sees (anime) / gives chase after (manga) is the second visitor and not the true killer.

Yuuki's behavior: Yeah, they definitely did the perfect job of balancing "Yuuki seems like a socially awkward Onii-chan" and "Yuuki is sketchy." I never got the vibe that he was creepy sketchy, and the idea that he was a pedophile rapist/murderer never really jived well with what we got to see of him on the hill. I was actually pretty relieved when the show took the turn towards Yuuki being innocent. But I still agree that he didn't seem, like, 100% normal or whatnot. The way he talked and acted made him tragically susceptible to being blamed for these murders.

* I think the voice acting is really great. Kayo, 2006 Satoru, 1988 Satoru, Satoru's mother, and Kenya are all up there for me. I've probably mentioned this before but it bears repeating. Any newcomers we may have, I think we should pay close attention to them in the future!

People have noted (adult) Satoru's VA is a first-timer. I'm ambivalent towards him so far, but I like how they layer his voice sometimes with child Satoru's.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Talon87

* Episode 02 gave me some Ano Hana vibes in more than one way. One of the ways in particular was ...

I get the impression that this is a "Guy likes Girl but Girl likes Other Guy" / "Girl likes Guy but Guy likes Other Girl" kind of setup, typical of romance stories, that is been fixed at the hip to a "Super Peace Busters"-esque sort of group of friends who hang out at their secret base and play together.

I didn't really get major AnoHana vibes tbh, although they did mention a secret base so that may play a role. I see what you mean now by their appearances being similar though.

I was confused as to whether Hiromi was a girl or boy at first, but I'm inclined to think it's the latter given children tend to stick with the same gender at that age. If there were more than one girl in the group I'd consider the multi-romance angle but right now I think we're just dealing with Kayo (and possibly the high school coworker) as the main "love interest".

...*tries to check Hiromi's gender*

>immediately gets spoiled

GDI Wikipedia.

I can confirm that he is, in fact a boy though. XP

Quote:

Originally Posted by Talon87

* I've previously mentioned the background music. But did you know that it was done by none other than Yuki Kajiura!? :o What a pleasant surprise. I especially love the song that plays during the ending scene of Episode 02.

Saw someone mention that in the comments as well. The music hasn't really stood out to me so far, but it's pleasantly atmospheric.

Can't say I'm too impressed with the OP/ED either. The intro's all right, although I honestly skipped the latter immediately after the first few notes - even though I feel I should probably watch it at least once in case it contains clues. XP (On that note, someone posted a screencap showing that if you freeze when Satoru is on the roof in the OP, you can see the shooter reflected in his broken glasses.)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Talon87

* There's a subtext here that Satoru wants to be a hero. We get it from the red mask he cherishes (Ep02) and the brief, brief flashback we have of the protagonist from that franchise when he's doing his first Revival we get to see (Ep01). I don't get the "supertext" from the young man / boy that he wants to be a hero, but the poster art (that I used for the OP pic up top) definitely doesn't give off any other impression. Wondering if that will factor in at all.

"Red is the color of heroes." *shot* Seriously though the palette does seem to focus on red a lot.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Talon87

Thanks for the reply! Alright, let's get crackin' on some of the topics you brought up ...

Differences from the manga: first, a quick little disclaimer: I've gotten the manga, quickly skimmed through all of Volume 1, caught up in Volume 2 to where we were in the show, and then skimmed the next chapter because I'm an idiot who hates spoilers yet then went looking for them. ^^; orz

I'm not big on this idea either, especially since we've seen him inhabit the same body when he goes back in time to childhood. But it's something to consider.

>Others having Revival powers

Again, I'm not necessarily sold on this. I'd chalk it up to character writing for the sake of plot, as you said. Just thought I'd mention it as a possibility as well.

...Actually, I was already spoiled on another aspect of Kenya's character that explains his mannerisms, so yeah. ^^; There's a reason for it.

Although that reason - combined now with your testimony on what happens in the manga after the murder - also leads me to wonder if Kenya might not be somehow involved. A part of me gets potential Togami vibes from him. Supposing he is the red-eyed creeper, he might have simply tampered with the crime scene for whatever agenda.

>Kayo is trying to save Satoru

Could be the child predator. Could be someone else. *shrug* I'm just putting it out there in case I'm right. XP

I'm also watching this as well. The two episodes so far are really great. I don't have that much to comment, but I'm pretty excited! Haven't watched anything in awhile so I hope this is a good anime that will "break the ice" for me.

First, a quick little disclaimer: I've gotten the manga, quickly skimmed through all of Volume 1, caught up in Volume 2 to where we were in the show, and then skimmed the next chapter because I'm an idiot who hates spoilers yet then went looking for them. ^^; orz

Continuing from here, I thought I'd take this time to share the specifics of what I have found from the manga. As noted above, all I've done is skimmed Volume 1 and the first three chapters of Volume 2. I've also seen the book covers of some of the later issues (like Book 7, whose cover is plastered all over the official sites for the anime and manga). So with this in mind, please rest easy knowing that I won't (can't!) spoil you on anything further should you decide to read on. Alright then ...! Let's go.

Breadth: The first episode covers the same ground as the entirety of Volume 1 (six chapters), excising a sizeable amount of information but taking us to the same ending point -- Satoru's arrival in 1988 in front of his elementary school.

So perhaps one reason we found Episode 01 so good, so rich, was because we were experiencing the Studio David's JoJo's Bizarre Adventure Effect without even knowing it. "Take a manga tankoubon, condense it into 22 minutes, success!"

Hiromi: In the manga, Satoru remembers his 5th grade friends one after another (during the events of Episode 01) but can't remember the face or name of his fourth friend. He's certain there's a fourth friend, but he just can't seem to remember who they are or what their name is. Finally, he remembers who they are: it's Hiromi, the third child who was abducted. So there's that spoiler. It's curious that Anime Satoru hasn't commented on this even once yet. Surely you'd think that when he saw Hiromi in class (Episode 02) that he would have reflected on Hiromi's death in 1988. After all, so much time is spent recalling and trying to prevent Kayo's! So why not Hiromi's also? It's weird. But clearly deliberate. The anime must be intending something. Maybe Anime Hiromi isn't one of the murdered children? Maybe Anime Hiromi will play a minor role because Manga Hiromi, despite having some backstory, ends up not mattering in later volumes or something? No idea. We'll just have to wait and see.

Speaking of "third child" abducted, that's another thing: I originally wrote "second child" there, but then looked back at the manga and saw I was mistaken and made the correction. I'll have to go check again later, but I wonder if in the anime version of BokuMachi Satoru is remembering there only having been two abductions (and that's why I also thought there were only two), and so Hiromi's abduction is the surprise third abduction that Satoru was so traumatized by he utterly blocked it from memory.

I did not pay close enough attention when I skimmed through the manga, but you're absolutely right, Yuki: Hiromi is a boy. I cry foul because a) he looks like a girl and b) names ending in 美 -mi are almost always girls' names. But yeah, my mistake: Hiromi's a boy.

Satoru actually notes in Volume 01 that Hiromi has a "girl-like face" as well as a girl-like name (booyah! vindication! ^^; ), and I think that this will play into the murders later on. Because the first two victims are girls. And then you have Hiromi, who looks like a girl but is not a girl. Makes me wonder if the child predator was going after girls and mistook Hiromi for one, hence why Hiromi got killed.

Satoru blames himself for Hiromi's death. The day Hiromi died, Satoru was heading to the kids' secret base but Hiromi was too scared to tag along. Satoru told him to suit himself and headed on off without him. "If only I hadn't done that," etc, etc, "Hiromi would still be alive today."

Kayo's mother: Kayo's mother makes her first appearance in the anime in a very brief shot in Episode 02. But in the manga, she's actually shown much earlier: at the very beginning of Chapter 02, with a flashback of Satoru's and some full commentary on the topic.

Satoru recalls, "That 'mother' was laughing." And we see a picture of Kayo's mother similar to what we got to see in Episode 02. Then he continues, "for some odd reason, just for some odd reason," he decided to go down the street near where Kayo lives. It's 1988, ten days after Kayo has gone missing. And he sees a lot of trash bags on the side of the road near the trash pickup area. He looks at one of them that is spilling open ... and he sees Kayo's gym shorts, with her last name Hinazuki clearly written on them. So not even ten days after the missing persons report was filed, Kayo's mother is already throwing away her daughter's clothes.

Then the mother spies Satoru. Their eyes connect. She gives him this sick, menacing glare. And he runs. He runs, and he runs, and he runs. He runs right past the school and into somebody's garden. And he just pukes. "Was it because I was running too hard? Or was it because of that 'mother''s laughter? It was probably both."

So we get the foreshadowing early on that Kayo's mother is a monster. And I think, at least in the manga, it comes across even more clearly than it does by the end of Episode 02 in the anime that ... Kayo may not have even been one of the truly abducted children. She might have been murdered by her psychopathic mother, separately from the abductions that later happened.

Additional Revivals: In the anime, we had our demonstratory Revival at the start of the episode, a brief second one in the shopping district, and then our big deal Revival at the end of the episode. I thought this worked perfectly, and was one of the rare cases where exposition was done well and was the way to go. "We don't need to show them ten different Revivals before getting to the Big One. We can just show them one or two and then tell them, 'Yeah, this is a thing that often happens to me. Usually I only go back in time by 5 to 10 minutes,' and then deliver them the final one on a silver platter."

But in the manga, the author chooses to show rather than tell. So we get one additional chapter-consuming Revival that the anime opted to cut out. In it, Satoru heads inside an abandoned high-rise building where with Airi's help he saves the life of a boy who is falling down an elevator shaft. Airi, having witnessed Satoru's powers twice now, questions if he is some sort of angel of death. She feels more like his tag-along sidekick in the manga, vs. in the anime where she's just this incidental coworker who we see in Episode 01 and then care about never again. Of course, that's likely to change: Airi appears to be a big deal, considering her prominent placement all over the official sites and even on some of the later manga covers.

Breadth: The second episode covers the first two chapters of Volume 2 as well as a tiny bit of the third chapter. The bulk of the third chapter, which I stupidly could not put down , will probably be what Episode 03 entirely focuses on. I'll be surprised if we go past that point in just one episode.

Similar to Episode 01, Episode 02 isn't just awesome because it is -- it is -- but also because it's two chapters in one, plus a little bit more from a third chapter. If the show seems to slow down later on and it's because episodes are only corresponding with one chapter of the manga at a time, then we'll know what's to blame. But so far, I have confidence in this director. He seems to understand good pacing.

Kayo's mother: This one is a probable spoiler for Episode 03. I don't even want to say what all happens beyond a very, very vague thing that should whet the appetites for anyone who enjoys a little spoiler in their life:

That is all I will say for now. The episode promises to be ... intense. ^^;

Changes or Lack Thereof: Unlike Episode 01, which cut out a bit of material for the sake of time or made other changes for as-yet untold reasons, Episode 02 is a pretty faithful adaptation of what you get in the original first two chapters of Volume 02 of the manga. Characters' dialogue, Satoru's narration, scenes, camera shots, all of it. You don't have to worry too much that they're changing the story and that the TV show isn't the same as the manga. Or at least, I don't think you do. The faithfulness of adapting Chapters 07 and 08 into television format is too strong for that.

I watched the first episode. I think I'll watch the second after I eat and get booze'd up!

...

I have a few complaints. I didn't watch it as closely as Talon did, since I don't think this show is as complex a mystery as say, Dangan Ronpa. So there wasn't a lot of impetus for me to mentally challenge the plot. But Talon's observation just wants me to see immediate resolution: the murderer caught, humiliated, tortured and killed. Unless it happens like in Episode 02 I will end up frustrated for most of the series.

Satoru's a cool guy. I like him, but there's no dodging around that things look pretty darn self-insert.

This begins with the light novel/manga I've been reading lately, Re:Monster, which falls under the "second life" sub-genre of fiction. The idea is that someone with advanced intelligence or knowledge goes either into the past, or another world where that intelligence gives them an unfair advantage against those competing in the world without it.

It's seen as a lamentable favourite of neets and otaku, people with social stigma problems. They can't cut it in the real world, or refuse to change to adapt to it, so you instead change the world so they can remain the same, and be able to dominate it. Re:Monster in my view isn't very overtly social-insert, but on a basis level it's subject to that criticism.

29-year old pizza store worker is being hit on by a cute 17 year old girl? And to boot, he's a failed manga-ka, the go-to profession all neets and otaku aspire to be? Even the act of saving randoms with a super-power feels self-insert: it shows to the audience "this guy is actually a good guy!" because he doesn't abuse his power or ignore it, and that because he has a super-power, he's secretly special.

So here, we have a guy who failed to obtain otaku godhood, reboot himself in the past with his advanced adult knowledge. I can't say this dish isn't a little salty for me.

On the Murder

Man that was stupid.

Maybe it's just Japan, but I'm not so moronic to believe that a guy who comes home and sees a dead body is immediately framed for murder as cops swarm the premises immediately after the neighbour screams. Guilty until proven innocent? This type of thing happens a lot in America, and the discoverer is given the benefit of the doubt.

I read a similar thing about the gas chamber scene in Schindler's List. European critics called Americans dumb because they were fooled into thinking the shower was a gas chamber. Speilberg apparently felt the trick was effective, but Europeans (allegedly) found it insulting to the intelligence. Such is my attitude toward this scene. Either in a general sense, it's ridiculous, or if it's reflective of Japan, Japan is ridiculous.

On Time Travel

Muv-Luv Alternative has effectively ruined me for this kind of thing, and I actually fixed it for my own visual novel, but those fixes don't apply in this scenario. Every time Satoru jumps into the past, here's merely entering a new parallel world where the bad stuff doesn't happen.

With the butterfly effect, if Satoru changes the past, a good chunk of that future of his (like meeting the cute co-worker) won't come to pass. Is that desirable? The 10 year old me would have preferred to be a rich CEO by age 28, but the current age 28 me would be rather indifferent. In a parallel world, it's probably the rich CEO version of myself wouldn't want to be poorer, but would he be willing to go back in time and try again to be say a world dictator?

If not for the cosmic influence in this story - the sense that something is pushing Satoru to solve the murder - I might find this story quite distasteful, like how Phil Conners learned info from the women he wanted to bang by virtue of the time jumps. It feels a bit like lame exploitation by a person who couldn't play the game fairly.

I am honestly excited now. Really, we could have just started with this one and skipped the lamer aspects of the time travel. There was a lot of juicy character development and some humourful scenes. It made me want to rewatch it again, which is my gold standard for evaluating a show's quality.

I am honestly excited now. Really, we could have just started with this one and skipped the lamer aspects of the time travel. There was a lot of juicy character development and some humourful scenes. It made me want to rewatch it again, which is my gold standard for evaluating a show's quality.

Well, I mean ... you can't really just begin with Episode 02. There is too much that is intrinsic to BokuMachi's formula that you either couldn't have or that wouldn't be done well if you didn't at least set up what Episode 01 sets up. I enjoyed Episode 01 a lot, but if you have to consider it a necessary evil to get to Episode 02 then I'd suggest you do so. I don't think you can write Episode 01 off as "unnecessary" and skippable.

As for wanting to re-watch 02, I know the feeling! I watched it twice in a row (separated only by maybe five minutes' pause) back when I first saw it, and I think I might've watched it a third time (not sure). I know I have held myself back from watching it any more since then because I don't want to run it into the ground and have it lose its emotional impact. But man. Man. Entire episode is great, and the final scene of the episode is just HRNGGGGGGGGGGH in all the right ways. (Adorable! Romantic! Dramatic! Exciting!)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Doppleganger

When's the next one?

It airs on Thursdays. I believe CrunchyRoll releases new episodes around noon Eastern time (in about two to three hours). CrunchyRoll rippers like HorribleSubs probably have it out within the hour of its CR release.

Well, I mean ... you can't really just begin with Episode 02. There is too much that is intrinsic to BokuMachi's formula that you either couldn't have or that wouldn't be done well if you didn't at least set up what Episode 01 sets up. I enjoyed Episode 01 a lot, but if you have to consider it a necessary evil to get to Episode 02 then I'd suggest you do so. I don't think you can write Episode 01 off as "unnecessary" and skippable.

Maybe as LBC says, the excision and re-attachment of the events in first episode created some whiplash. Yet most of my criticisms from the first episode aren't relevant to the second, because they're not touched on.

I guess to a certain extent Satoru's "social ineptitude" might be applicable, but his conversation with Hinazuki seems pretty basic and age-suitable for 10 year olds to be stressing over. I needed to reign this consideration in before dropping any comparisons with The Catcher in the Rye...because we're not quite there, yet.

It also brings out Satoru's personality quite well. Him constantly saving people using Revival may have made him more mature and better able to handle his mission in the past and not be upset at seeing the murder in the first episode. Compared to the emotional meltdown of a certain mad scientist, that's quite refreshing.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Talon87

As for wanting to re-watch 02, I know the feeling! I watched it twice in a row (separated only by maybe five minutes' pause) back when I first saw it, and I think I might've watched it a third time (not sure). I know I have held myself back from watching it any more since then because I don't want to run it into the ground and have it lose its emotional impact. But man. Man. Entire episode is great, and the final scene of the episode is just HRNGGGGGGGGGGH in all the right ways. (Adorable! Romantic! Dramatic! Exciting!)

The production value quality is really apparent in Episode 02, even if the first episode had technically more action with the chase and murder. We have high quality backgrounds with airbrush effects and the basic motions and character expressions are handled quite effectively too.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Talon87

It airs on Thursdays. I believe CrunchyRoll releases new episodes around noon Eastern time (in about two to three hours). CrunchyRoll rippers like HorribleSubs probably have it out within the hour of its CR release.

There was less of Satoru's dry, meta commentary in this episode than the last, but that's hardly a negative, just a lack of plus. The funniest moments were his deadpan responses to elementary school romance!

Before we get into conspiracy theories, I would strongly object to the idea that the kids are involved in the abduction in any direct way. That includes Kenya, and the director tried to insinuate Kenya talking to someone at school late that night was dangerous.

I answer this because of Occam's Razor - kids are not intelligent enough, powerful enough, well connected enough or malicious enough to work in conjunction with others for kidnapping. I look back at Muv-Luv Alternative and how there were TONS of theories on how there was some inter-dimensional conspiracy between Extra and Alternative, but the simple answer was that all the chaos originated out of Alternative...and that's how it ended up being. It wasn't a story of "two worlds", it was always one world that was the aggressor.

And such here, I think if the kids are involved it's as unintentional informants, they're not key figures in the murders at all.

I suspect the teacher just because. He leaves an impression of being reliable, and trustworthy, but in a world where you don't know who to trust and the enemy is male, you can't fully rule him out. The guy talking to Kenya at night might not even be the same teacher.

Like it or not, Satoru is laying a romantic frame-work with his Hinazuki interactions. It feels very visual-novel esque in how he's hitting all the events that would emotionally connect a girl to him.

Two things I noticed from re-views of the older episodes:

1. "two of my classmates were abducted"

Of Satoru's group, one person really stood out to me -

Hiro looks, acts, and talks girlier than the other characeters. Initially, I suspected Hiro was female - especially when Hiro asked Satoru to walk home with him, and expressed exuberance at Satoru's love life - but Hinazuki having a seifuku changed that mentality. It felt so natural to have one girl in a group of four guys, to not make it a full-on sausage fest (even if the girl were tomboyish).

Oh.

This seems important somehow.

Don't ask me, it's man's intuition.

2. When Revival triggered the second time, nobody died.

This is the biggest contradiction for the ability's effect, aside from Satoru jumping 18 years into the past. That little girl was going to be abducted, but most likely not immediately killed. Bad dude would have at least driven her to a secluded area, raped her then killed her. So the timing isn't quite the same as with the little boy crossing the street.

Revival's mechanics - or how the conditions must be set for it to be triggered - aren't consistent. It feels like the arbitrary judgment of a third party, or perhaps Satoru's unconscious. Ultimately, the mechanics don't matter at the moment, but they're still something to consider if the director of the ability has some kind of agenda.

Satoru's a cool guy. I like him, but there's no dodging around that things look pretty darn self-insert.

This begins with the light novel/manga I've been reading lately, Re:Monster, which falls under the "second life" sub-genre of fiction. The idea is that someone with advanced intelligence or knowledge goes either into the past, or another world where that intelligence gives them an unfair advantage against those competing in the world without it.

It's seen as a lamentable favourite of neets and otaku, people with social stigma problems. They can't cut it in the real world, or refuse to change to adapt to it, so you instead change the world so they can remain the same, and be able to dominate it. Re:Monster in my view isn't very overtly social-insert, but on a basis level it's subject to that criticism.

29-year old pizza store worker is being hit on by a cute 17 year old girl? And to boot, he's a failed manga-ka, the go-to profession all neets and otaku aspire to be? Even the act of saving randoms with a super-power feels self-insert: it shows to the audience "this guy is actually a good guy!" because he doesn't abuse his power or ignore it, and that because he has a super-power, he's secretly special.

So here, we have a guy who failed to obtain otaku godhood, reboot himself in the past with his advanced adult knowledge. I can't say this dish isn't a little salty for me.

I rolled my eyes a little at the "failed mangaka" trope myself. And now we have episode 03 where

Satoru is shown to randomly be a skilled skater, faster than even the kid who regularly trains for it. It's not even because he's an adult in a kid's body, as it's implied that he threw the race back then too. Felt a bit forced insert of raw talent to make even his child self more godly IMO.

So I was spoiled on the same thing Talon pointed out from the manga, and which episode 03 has now blatantly revealed: That Hiromi is one the child victims.

While I'm relieved the "secret" is now fully out in the open, the knowledge put a rather sour taste in my mouth that somewhat hampered my enjoyment throughout the ep. The fact Satoru is completely aware of it yet pays zero attention to Hiromi doesn't sit well with me. The scene at the stairwell almost seems to be screaming that Satoru is making a critical choice by "snubbing" Hiromi to score affection points with the main love interest. As Dopple puts it, it feels very visual novel-esque, and something tells me putting Kayo completely first will have dire consequences down the road.

According to manga readers, the reason Satoru is solely focusing on Kayo is because she was originally the first victim. This wasn't elaborated very well, and it still bothers me a little that Satoru doesn't show any concern at all for his existing friend. I'm willing to bet Hiromi ends up being culled first instead at this rate.

Satoru's interactions with Kayo were quite kawaii. And we see more of the poor girl's home life... Heartbreaking indeed, and even worse that the school authorities apparently "know" about it but haven't taken any decisive action.

Is this a Japan thing, where people are afraid to speak out without solid proof? I know bullying is also a big problem in Japanese schools, and I actually liked how both realistically and logically that situation was handled. Whereas Satoru did the right thing by calling that girl out on her BS (apparently he was even more blunt in the manga by declaring "you did this bitch"), there is an immediate sense of sympathy seeing her tearful reaction and realizing she is just 10 years old. Even if she is a total brat seeking attention, you can't fault her for being ignorant of Kayo's situation. In her mind she's just getting petty revenge, acting purely out of personal spite as someone her age would. I thought the teacher did a pretty good job of defusing the tension in this case.

I'm with Dopple that the last scene of Kenya talking to the teacher at school during the night reeked of red herring. The shadowed faces and ominous music were far too obvious cues. I've a feeling introducing another character (Kayo's father?) with red eyes is also meant to mislead. (As an aside: I thought red eyes were supposed to be for heroes, not villains. =3= *shot*)

At this point I'm tempted to also employ Occam's Razor and say that the killer is Yuuki after all. It was a little unnerving to learn he's 23 (I thought he was in middle school or something)... But then I remember I'm the same age. OTL I don't think I should be (considered) too old to be hanging out with younger kids since I still feel like one myself. =x Granted I'm a girl, but still.

Satoru stated that Revival only occurs when "something bad" is about to happen. That doesn't necessarily mean death. It is a vague phenomenon, but he does describe it as such, so it leaves room for "inconsistencies".

I don't think that the difference in pre-pubescent bodies is so dramatic that Satoru shouldn't be able to beat whats-his-face. I mean, if we're talking about high school, and that arrogant kid was training for years and had a body to match, while Satoru did no training, it's pretty ridiculous and self-insert.

Even though I did criticize the manga-ka profession, so far it's been handled rather tastefully. Satoru hasn't been shown to be a pervert, a NEET or an otaku - the three most danging criteria for establishing a person as a "loser" when they have manga-ka aspirations. He could have been rather legit.

As I told BBB, I liked the scene in Yuuki's room a lot. Yuuki (age 24) and Satoru (age 29) were both shy around the hentai Yuuki had there - it felt very old-fashioned that Yuuki would have print hentai and on his bookshelf, and be embarrassed about it, given the modern age where everyone has it in their web browsers and are open about it online. Rather innocent, I'd say, and fondly "reminiscent" of Showa-era morals in the same way 20th Century Boys and Akagi managed to evoke.

As far as Hiro is concerned, I wouldn't take it as Satoru doesn't care about her. As I mentioned, it wasn't immediately apparent to me that Hiro = Hiromi and that Hiromi is female. Satoru is missing pieces of his memory somehow, so maybe it hasn't hit him that his friend is a victim. TVTropes loves to label this "FridgeLogic" because it hits you some time after you've glossed over the information, while you're about to get a midnight snack.

Even if we consider that, at the current rate 29 year old Satoru has a much better relationship with Hinazuki Kayo than he does any of the other four gang members. So it's only natural he'd be heavily focused on her, and considering the murderer is after her too it's not un-reasonable.

I think we can presume Yuuki's innocence since Sachiko basically stumped for him to the audience. And that the guy is actually employed by his dad, he's not really as creepy as how he was introduced (which was laughably suspect) - I'm not 100% sure on the subtlety because I was smashed when I saw the episode, but didn't Satoru imply Yuuki's stuttering was to hide his kansai accent? The stereotype of Osaka folk is that they're blue collar bumpkins, so I would imagine that accent feeling very out of place in Hokkaido. For a single guy who is socially awkward, or isolated from people his age, perhaps he feels he can open up to kids more. Especially if they're neighbours.

Even though I did criticize the manga-ka profession, so far it's been handled rather tastefully. Satoru hasn't been shown to be a pervert, a NEET or an otaku - the three most danging criteria for establishing a person as a "loser" when they have manga-ka aspirations. He could have been rather legit.

As I told BBB, I liked the scene in Yuuki's room a lot. Yuuki (age 24) and Satoru (age 29) were both shy around the hentai Yuuki had there - it felt very old-fashioned that Yuuki would have print hentai and on his bookshelf, and be embarrassed about it, given the modern age where everyone has it in their web browsers and are open about it online. Rather innocent, I'd say, and fondly "reminiscent" of Showa-era morals in the same way 20th Century Boys and Akagi managed to evoke.

As far as Hiro is concerned, I wouldn't take it as Satoru doesn't care about her. As I mentioned, it wasn't immediately apparent to me that Hiro = Hiromi and that Hiromi is female. Satoru is missing pieces of his memory somehow, so maybe it hasn't hit him that his friend is a victim. TVTropes loves to label this "FridgeLogic" because it hits you some time after you've glossed over the information, while you're about to get a midnight snack.

Hiromi: In the manga, Satoru remembers his 5th grade friends one after another (during the events of Episode 01) but can't remember the face or name of his fourth friend. He's certain there's a fourth friend, but he just can't seem to remember who they are or what their name is. Finally, he remembers who they are: it's Hiromi, the third child who was abducted. So there's that spoiler. It's curious that Anime Satoru hasn't commented on this even once yet. Surely you'd think that when he saw Hiromi in class (Episode 02) that he would have reflected on Hiromi's death in 1988. After all, so much time is spent recalling and trying to prevent Kayo's! So why not Hiromi's also? It's weird. But clearly deliberate. The anime must be intending something. Maybe Anime Hiromi isn't one of the murdered children? Maybe Anime Hiromi will play a minor role because Manga Hiromi, despite having some backstory, ends up not mattering in later volumes or something? No idea. We'll just have to wait and see.

Speaking of "third child" abducted, that's another thing: I originally wrote "second child" there, but then looked back at the manga and saw I was mistaken and made the correction. I'll have to go check again later, but I wonder if in the anime version of BokuMachi Satoru is remembering there only having been two abductions (and that's why I also thought there were only two), and so Hiromi's abduction is the surprise third abduction that Satoru was so traumatized by he utterly blocked it from memory.

I did not pay close enough attention when I skimmed through the manga, but you're absolutely right, Yuki: Hiromi is a boy. I cry foul because a) he looks like a girl and b) names ending in 美 -mi are almost always girls' names. But yeah, my mistake: Hiromi's a boy.

Satoru actually notes in Volume 01 that Hiromi has a "girl-like face" as well as a girl-like name (booyah! vindication! ^^; ), and I think that this will play into the murders later on. Because the first two victims are girls. And then you have Hiromi, who looks like a girl but is not a girl. Makes me wonder if the child predator was going after girls and mistook Hiromi for one, hence why Hiromi got killed.

Satoru blames himself for Hiromi's death. The day Hiromi died, Satoru was heading to the kids' secret base but Hiromi was too scared to tag along. Satoru told him to suit himself and headed on off without him. "If only I hadn't done that," etc, etc, "Hiromi would still be alive today."

Given all this info, I was expecting this relationship to go the Kanon route. Heck, maybe Hiromi is actually the tragic heroine of this tale. ;P

Bah, wish we'd gotten more to work with this week. When the ep ended I was immediately left thinking "That's it? D=". Definitely didn't feel like a half hour. =3=

No more of that manga stuff, please. I did read it, but didn't process it very well because I wasn't properly cognizant. But now that I'm aware of that quote, I'm regretful, and given how far everyone has read, I would like to restrict access to that information.

I don't blame you, but I wasn't aware of just how detailed at was going to be. I could only evaluate it as something I would have avoided ex post facto.

My reasoning is what tends to destroy a mutual interest anime like this is someone reading ahead. Most of the time, I'm the perp - I did it for Hunter x Hunter and Dangan Ronpa, which had tangible deflating effects on the topics. I'm not sure what happened - perhaps the mid-life crisis from a few months ago stimulate the change - but I have little desire to spoil myself on the alternate material. I'm perfectly fine taking my time on this one.

I feel a bit vindicated knowing Hiro is male, since that's what I concluded upon seeing Hinazuki Kayo's seifuku. But it's counter intuitive that a pervert child abductor would target a male, so I was duped into stepping back from that correct conclusion.

No more of that manga stuff, please. I did read it, but didn't process it very well because I wasn't properly cognizant. But now that I'm aware of that quote, I'm regretful, and given how far everyone has read, I would like to restrict access to that information.

I don't blame you, but I wasn't aware of just how detailed at was going to be. I could only evaluate it as something I would have avoided ex post facto.

My reasoning is what tends to destroy a mutual interest anime like this is someone reading ahead. Most of the time, I'm the perp - I did it for Hunter x Hunter and Dangan Ronpa, which had tangible deflating effects on the topics. I'm not sure what happened - perhaps the mid-life crisis from a few months ago stimulate the change - but I have little desire to spoil myself on the alternate material. I'm perfectly fine taking my time on this one.

I feel a bit vindicated knowing Hiro is male, since that's what I concluded upon seeing Hinazuki Kayo's seifuku. But it's counter intuitive that a pervert child abductor would target a male, so I was duped into stepping back from that correct conclusion.

I wasn't expecting Talon's spoiler to contain that much information either; at that point all I knew was what episode 03 revealed to us. But at least we're all on the same page now, and I don't intend to read further myself. (Although I may be exposed to whatever manga readers let slip through the cracks since I read comments elsewhere as well.)

I think Kenya is going to have a more intricate connection to this than we're assuming. We're speculating as to 'who dunnit' but I think it'll run much deeper than that. Maybe all of the speculated suspects are involved somehow? Having watched Season 1 of Hannibal recently I'm imagining the teacher using Kenya somehow to lure kids into doing what he wants, but I'm only thinking of that because of Hannibal.

I also think, judging from the OP, that this series is gonna have a 'you can only save 1 out of 3' kind of thing going on. His mum, Hinazuki and the pizza girl (cant remember her name) are the 3 to save and seeing as how his Mum & Hinazuki died in the original timeline, the choices he makes will affect who is saved and who dies somewhere down the line (video game style). This also could have a morbid 'your choices ultimately don't affect the outcome' kind of feel to it, seeing as he didn't change anything in the ice skating race and he noted it as 'a mistake'.

I'm excited to see what more this series has to offer. Its a premise that has a LOT to offer but has to be consistently executed well. Its good so far, and I'm hoping it stays this good.

I don't think Satoru is the only one with revival powers. I bet blonde kid has 'em too! Let's call him Gilgamesh since I can't remember his name. Gilgamesh has the powers of revival, but unlike Satoru's, it's evil! That's right, evil revival, or evival! Where revival gives guy a chance to save a life, evival makes an uncertain death certain. There's an old lady crossing the road and she makes it, evival comes into play and Gilgamesh pushes the old lady in traffic! Guy's driving a motorcycle really fast, Gilgamesh shoots him with a sniper rifle! The show will be a battle of powers where Satoru and Giglamesh thwart each other.

I watched Episode 03 on Thursday. I teared up. But first, before I post my thoughts on that ...

One thing I've been meaning to discuss was Kayo's essay, introduced in Episode 02. Titled Watashi dake ga Inai Machi, it is clearly tied in to the title of the story we're watching. The fact that she uses watashi instead of boku leaves ambiguous whether the titular boku will end up being Satoru or Kayo (or someone else entirely).

Below is a reproduction of the CR translation for easy access, along with the original manga text in Japanese for cross-sourcing:

First, we have the essay itself. I thought it was a good hybrid between an obvious SOS and the sort of elementary school essay kids are normally expected to write. You can tell a lot about Kayo from this essay. For instance, her essay is all about removing herself from the situation rather than forcing change upon others. (While we know she asks Satoru to kill someone for her, and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out she means her mother, in the essay she doesn't wish harm upon anyone.) Another example is the vocabulary and syntax of her essay. You can tell a few small things about her level of education and her intelligence from the essay. I've already touched on her use of watashi, which returns here in the main body of the essay. If nothing else, I feel like this essay serves as a good forecast for a possible honeymoon or vacation in the event of a Good End that turns romantic for Satoru and Kayo.

Second, we have the visuals that are shown during the reading of the essay. I didn't realize it at the time, as I watched Episode 02 before touching the manga, but A-1 Pictures transposes some of the content from Chapter 02 of the manga on over to the essay's reading in Episode 02. Most visually apparent is the evilly and/or crazily smiling mother, but there's also the issue of the trash bags. They're not animated to be super apparent, but their contents are there, the writing discernible to Japanese eyes that know how to read the Chinese characters. Given the limited time the anime has to work with -- only nine episodes to go! -- we might not end up revisiting Chapter 02's contents any more than this. But the fact remains that the clue is there for anime-only viewers to find.

Alright! Next time I'll post my thoughts on Episode 03, and read all of your guys' as well.

Alright! Next time I'll post my thoughts on Episode 03, and read all of your guys' as well.

Still haven't gotten to do this yet. An unexpected work-related thing came up today that took away roughly 90 minutes, leaving me with neither the time to finish my 03 post nor to watch Episode 04. Sooooooo ... yeah. ^^; :\ You guys will probably watch and discuss 04 before I even get to weigh in on 03. Oh well. Such is life.

03 post is still on the way. I already have it written up notes-style on my phone, and have pictures prepared for the paragraphs and everything. All I have to do is write it formally.

Haven't gotten to see 04 yet. Very excited though. Plan is to come home from work tonight, write up 03 post, and treat myself to 04 either before bed tonight or else tomorrow morning before work.

Is what Satoru doing dishonest? He's having Hinazuki think he's in love with her, when all he wants is for her not to die (and, by extension, not have his mother dying).

It's an interesting question because Satoru is clearly invested in Hinazuki's wellfare, and he's not thinking of "I'll save mom" every moment. My impression is he's equally devoted to both, but in doing so that would suggest some kind of change in his view of Hinazuki.

He didn't care much for her before, but he clearly cares now, and it's honest to a certain degree. I'd like to hear more of Satoru's reflections on this seeming contradiction.